Please Help Identify. Can Not Find Anything Like It?

[Heb]

4 minutes ago, jasong said:

I have no clue what that thing is but I'm fascinated by it. I'll pay $100 plus cover all shipping costs to the US if you want to sell it. ?

I don't even have any more useful input because I'm totally stumped. It looks chert-like to me. From the first pics it appeared to be some kind of shaley/sandstoney material, but I don't think so now. So I don't think it's a petrified mud flow now, and it's not lava. Could be a petrified remain of something formed like gogotte but I doubt that now too. I'm not often completely stumped and out of ideas, but this stumped me... 

It has inclusions of other minerals. Not a conglomerate though, not a breccia from what I can tell. The streak is probably just showing surface oxidation (hematite, rust), which is pretty normal on a lot of rocks in the desert. 

I mean, I guess it could be the seed of some kind of concretion? But that end part you show indicates the pattern is continuous across the end and to the other side, to some degree, while not so on other parts of the rock, it doesn't look like a concretion to me, nor anything that would be formed by weather/wind, but that's just my opinion and nothing more. 

The only thing that makes any sense to me is a fossil. Chert is essentially the remnants of biologic goo from the bottom of an ancient sea, and so it can contain fossils. But that appears to mostly be on the surface, making me question if it's a fossil. But that's still the best guess I have. I'm more like 50/50 now though instead of 90%. ?

Haha thanks Jasong if I do decide to see you will get first offer promise ? the fossil people recon it’s not a fossil so I guess have to try and find a way to get it tested. 
 

Thank you so much for your input . I Google everything anyone suggests!

[jasong]

Good luck, just promise to post back here if someone from outside the forum figures out what it is. I gotta know now haha.

[Heb]

[Geologyhound]

A portion of the lower part of the broken surface appears to have the scalloped appearance typical of conchoidial fracturing.  This is something I would expect to find in fine grained silicates (like a agate, chert, or obsidian).  Yet, the top portion very definitely appears to have grains weathering out of the groundmass.

It scratches porcelain, so that rules out the typical hematite and ironstone nodules, but is the hard portion the grains?  I concur with Jasong the little streak color you got was from surface residue/oxidation.

Let’s rule out some other possibilities.  If you have any dilute hydrochloric acid, drip some one some of the surfaces.  If it fizzes, you have some calcite cementation. In that case, try to figure out exactly what fizzes.

[jasong]

Here's an old geologic map of the Sinai Peninsula. (Well, Egypt in general, but given Israel confict areas I assume...) Mostly quaternary sediments by where the Suez canal would later be. Things get a bit more interesting as you go further south and get into some chert bearing formations, some of them clastic (clastic means inclusion of various other pebbles, which your rock seems to have). Going further south of that it's a lot of precambrian and not likely where the rock came from. So, I'm guessing it came from somewhere around the middle to upper middle Sinai Peninsula?

Geographically that should narrow down known oddball concretion occurences. And this one is definitely odd enough to have a note somewhere if others like it are also found. If it was purely geologic in origin like a concretion, there would surely be more of them known and found already...they usually form in large numbers, non 1-off oddballs. Just 1 odd, totally unique concretion would be very unlikely (though not impossible I guess) it's another reason I can't shake the fossil thing or the idea it's not purely just geologic. I go do something else productive then start thinking about this rock again haha. Ok, now I'm really done for the night though. 

It's definitely a rock...but I'm staring at that thing trying to convince myself it's some thing created by a human too. But I can't see that yet. I suppose it's possible. That thing really looks like something out of an alien movie designed by HR Giger or something, which is partly why I think it's so cool. Looks strangely familiar yet unrecognizable. Almost like a lung lobe and trachea, but not. 

 

 

[Heb]

On 4/11/2023 at 4:29 AM, Geologyhound said:

A portion of the lower part of the broken surface appears to have the scalloped appearance typical of conchoidial fracturing.  This is something I would expect to find in fine grained silicates (like a agate, chert, or obsidian).  Yet, the top portion very definitely appears to have grains weathering out of the groundmass.

It scratches porcelain, so that rules out the typical hematite and ironstone nodules, but is the hard portion the grains?  I concur with Jasong the little streak color you got was from surface residue/oxidation.

Let’s rule out some other possibilities.  If you have any dilute hydrochloric acid, drip some one some of the surfaces.  If it fizzes, you have some calcite cementation. In that case, try to figure out exactly what fizzes.

Thanks so much I will attempt to conduct some of the experiments you have suggested. Learning lots here ?

[Heb]

On 4/11/2023 at 5:40 AM, jasong said:

Here's an old geologic map of the Sinai Peninsula. (Well, Egypt in general, but given Israel confict areas I assume...) Mostly quaternary sediments by where the Suez canal would later be. Things get a bit more interesting as you go further south and get into some chert bearing formations, some of them clastic (clastic means inclusion of various other pebbles, which your rock seems to have). Going further south of that it's a lot of precambrian and not likely where the rock came from. So, I'm guessing it came from somewhere around the middle to upper middle Sinai Peninsula?

Geographically that should narrow down known oddball concretion occurences. And this one is definitely odd enough to have a note somewhere if others like it are also found. If it was purely geologic in origin like a concretion, there would surely be more of them known and found already...they usually form in large numbers, non 1-off oddballs. Just 1 odd, totally unique concretion would be very unlikely (though not impossible I guess) it's another reason I can't shake the fossil thing or the idea it's not purely just geologic. I go do something else productive then start thinking about this rock again haha. Ok, now I'm really done for the night though. 

It's definitely a rock...but I'm staring at that thing trying to convince myself it's some thing created by a human too. But I can't see that yet. I suppose it's possible. That thing really looks like something out of an alien movie designed by HR Giger or something, which is partly why I think it's so cool. Looks strangely familiar yet unrecognizable. Almost like a lung lobe and trachea, but not. 

 

 

Correct Egypt is where it was found ? . I want it to be alien so badly ?? I promis to let you all know once I get something definitive 

[blackjack]

On 4/9/2023 at 11:59 AM, mn90403 said:

I've seen two faces in it and I'm sure there are more!

Dam it, I can only see one, in profile.

[jasong]

13 hours ago, Heb said:

Correct Egypt is where it was found ? . I want it to be alien so badly ?? I promis to let you all know once I get something definitive 

I showed the photos to a couple researchers at a regional geology/paleontology museum. They came to the same conclusions as me basically: fossil-like, but not quite a fossil, concretion-like, but not quite a concretion, anthropogenic but not quite anthropogentic. Also agreed it was some clastic chert type rock. But the conclusion was "no idea". 

If it wasn't for the weathering rind and difference in rind between top (presumably exposed to sun/water at different times front/back) and the bottom, I'd be leaning more towards modern human carved. But the weathering indicates some serious age and sitting out in the elements (even appears to have some semi dendritic growths on the broken part), and the lines are so smooth and organic/natural that it's hard to see that being a carving by any ancient humans, no tool marks, and chert is very hard so it'd be difficult to work smoothly without conchoidal fracturing while carving with any ancient tools not from the modern era. I suppose it could be some CNC milled modern hoax type thing, but chert isn't easy to artificially weather quickly, and the weathering on it appears legit.

It's one of those things that you kinda need to examine in hand, with a loupe/microscope, to look for more hints, I think. Firstly, eliminating anything made by human tooling/paints/etc. Do you know the finder personally and are sure it was found in the middle of the desert for sure?

That area has been peopled for almost longer than anywhere else on the planet, it's a small area, so it's hard to imagine there are concretions like this laying around unnoticed for millennia. 

Whatever it is, I'm not often completely stumped, and if I could give a little emoji reward for the most intriguing "what is this rock" posted here so far, this would get it. ?